Ooma VOIP to offer Worldwide Free Calls?

Ooma VOIP was in the news more than any other VOIP provider since
late July. We at VOIP Guide purposely didnt cover the story to get the
most juice out before we publish our thoughts on this intriguing VOIP
Startup who plan to offer totally free calls.

So whats all this
hype about Ooma? Who are they? according to their Press release received
from their PR agency, The Silicon-Valley start-up, Ooma has intentions
of disrupting the telephone experience -- with ooma you'll never pay for
long distance again. Their executive team and board members include
some big names like Sean Parker (Napster, Facebook) and Mike Ramsey
(Founder of TiVo). Founder and CEO Andrew Frame was recently named one
of BusinessWeek’s Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs. Well above all, They
got Ashton Kutcher, the famous hollywood actor. What is he doing here?

Alright
Ooma got big names but does that mean they would succeed in making ooma
a totally free voip alternative PSTN service? Let see what they exactly
are trying to do.

Ooma works as a Peer to Peer service (similar
to Kazaa) People will share their bandwidth for routing calls via their
Ooma Boxes. Currently Ooma is giving away Free Ooma boxes to 1500 people
in USA since Ooma is currently limited to USA only and no one really
knows whether they would look beyond USA. Those 1500 people are chosen
by Ooma under invitation only beta. Although I was suppose to get the
invite, I am not in USA and can't participate in the beta. I hope once
they start looking at other countries, I would be the first one to get a
ooma box :-)

Now How Ooma would actually operate. Well just like
most other FREE VOIP/Free Call startups (most of them close down within
1 year), Ooma is banking on a loophole in US telecommunication rules.
Any calls made within 12 mile radius are free in USA. Ooma is now
pushing those 1500 boxes to people who can link each other so that there
is always 1 ooma box within 12 mile distance in entire USA, so on paper
Ooma has full coverage across USA.

Of course Ooma to ooma calls
are free, however ooma gives you a choice to call normal landline phones
(no mobile free yet) for FREE. Still not sure how its going to help?

Lets
consider an example. I live in New york and my friend is in Los
Angeles. I have a ooma box but my frd doesnt have one. So i dial his
number from my Ooma box, the call is then routed via peer to peer
network (over internet) to the nearest Ooma box user (within 12 miles)
from my friend's house and then terminated to his landline via local
PSTN line. So ooma to ooma is FREE then it routes through normal PSTN
which is also FREE since its within 12 mile radius. Sounds like a good
idea but well its totally based on the loophole. What if tommorow
governtment changes the policy? lol

Well, Ooma will probably push
this product (priced at $399) so hard in the market that everyone will
eventually have a ooma box. Thats what they hope, however if they got
closed down, will the service continue to run?

Some people
reportedly said, ooma won't work if they got closed down without
understanding how they exactly work? No one really knows whether they
use a Hydrid P2P or pure P2P.

if they use hybrid p2p, then They
have a central server that keeps information on peers and responds to
requests for that information. I guess this could be required since
regulation might require companies to know about their customers and
some quality/security issues related to it.

If they use pure P2p,
they could have serious legal issues but ooma will continue to run
irrespective of the company, coz the peers are responsible for data
transfer and there is no central server.

Overall ooma sounds like
a great idea. However the loopholes they are using is a huge concern
and of course these loopholes wont do any good when they look beyond
USA. Lets hope at the end of the day, the consumers WIN